


All I want for Christmas

by symphonyine



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Makoto Nagisa and Rei are only cameos though sorry, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 10:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symphonyine/pseuds/symphonyine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time travel. Haruka wakes up on Christmas Day ten years older and with Rin by his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I want for Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thimble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/gifts).



Haru awoke slowly on Christmas morning, the blankets snug around him in a warm cocoon. Sunlight teased at the corners of his eyelids, and a soft, regular wind tickled the crook of his shoulder, soothing as the tide. There was a weight around his waist, and vaguely he understood that this arrangement was not supposed to be happening, but was too comfortable to open his eyes yet. 

With gradual wakefulness Haru became aware that there was someone else in his bed, and that it was not really his bed at all. His bed was oriented out of the way of the sun, and the light on his face was getting stronger. He lay there for a while more, listening to the regular inhales and exhales behind him, savouring the last moments of half-conscious bliss. 

Finally, he shifted onto his back, and opened his eyes. A strange bed, a strange person, and a strange room too. He pushed aside a growing sense of discomfort and perhaps a note of panic, and looked to his left. 

It was Rin, but at the same time it wasn’t. Haru was both reassured and unsettled – but when had Rin ever inspired feelings in him that made sense? Haru let several breaths pass, and then he shifted closer. 

Rin was still asleep. Rin had never struck him as a deep sleeper, but here he was, face gentle, relaxed, unguarded – and old. Rin looked a lot older, but it wasn’t a bad kind of old. He had little crinkles around his eyes, like he smiled a lot, and the thought made a small bubble of light rise up in Haru’s chest. 

Rin snorted suddenly, incredibly unglamourously, and the bubble became a giggle Haru was to slow to stifle. Blearily, Rin opened his eyes and glared at Haru – but it was nothing like the ones he had only recently stopped levelling at Haru, sharp-edged and desperately forceful – “Oi, wha’re you laughing at?”

“The graceless pig fart that just came out of your mouth.”

“As if you’re any better some mornings.” Rin buried his face into his pillow. He tugged Haru closer with the arm he’d flung around Haru’s waist at some point, and Haru obliged.

The familiarity of the arrangement felt so strange, and yet so natural. Haru watched the line of Rin’s back as they lazed in bed – he hadn’t been aware they could be like this, bare breaths away from each other in the same bed in complete comfort, and he decided this was a good kind of strange. 

“Merry Christmas,” Rin mumbled, nuzzling into Haru’s neck. Haru tensed, but relaxed just as quickly. 

…Right. “Merry Christmas.”

Rin mumbled something else into the pillow, still lying tummy-down, his long hair ruffled into a mess. His red hair glinted gold in the morning light. 

“What?”

“What time is it?”

Haru looked around, craning his neck. “…10.38.”

Rin sat up, immediately awake. “What? That late? Come on.”

Brushing teeth with Rin was another novel experience – today was full of them apparently. Rin gave him an odd look when he didn’t seem to know how to navigate to the toilet, and again when he hesitated to follow Rin in, but brushed it off with idle chatter. 

Apparently this was normal for them, if Rin was so unfazed. 

Haru looked older too, in the mirror he could see the way his face had sharpened, lost some of its freshness. It helped that he understood his situation better now, but he also needed to know if this was some kind of temporary arrangement, or if he had somehow lost what seemed like ten years worth of memories. 

He’d call Makoto later. Maybe Makoto had changed his number. Where were they living anyway?

Rin broke through his thoughts with a kiss on the cheek, full of toothpaste froth, responding to the scowl with a cheeky grin. Haru flicked tapwater back at him, and Rin chuckled. 

“Thinking of something?” 

“No.” Haru shrugged Rin’s chin off his shoulder. “Now brush your- get off!”

Later in the kitchen, Haru watched curiously as Rin headed for the stove first and took out some mackerel. 

“Are you feeling all right?” Rin looked at him suspiciously – no, that was worry. “You’re acting oddly today.”

“What year is it?”

*

They ended up calling Makoto anyway – first speed dial on the phone – which was a whole bundle of confusion with Rin and Haru talking over each other and Makoto frantically trying to help them take stock. 

“Maybe it’ll wear off soon?” Makoto said comfortingly. 

“What if it doesn’t?” Rin groused at the speaker. “What if it’s some kind of sickness? Time travel? I don’t even believe in- in magic but –“

“We’ll deal with it,” Haru said, and Rin bit his lip and looked at Haru from out the corner of his eye. That was a much more familiar expression, now Rin looked like a little more like the Rin he had just seen yesterday at the temple with Makoto and Nagisa and Rei – or to be more precise, exactly ten years ago to the day. 

“What were you – we planning to do today?” Haru said after a few moments of silence and Rin not looking at him anymore. 

Rin ran a hand through his hair, still unsure of himself for the first time that morning – and afraid, Haru thought, but Rin covered it up quickly. “Well, obviously, since it’s Christmas, it’s just meant to be – to be our time, I guess. We were planning to just have fun together.”

Have fun. With Rin. “Let’s go do that then.”

“Fun” didn’t seem to have changed much for him and Rin. It still meant pools – an indoor one because it was freezing outside – and racing in and out of it, complete with immature jabs and teasing. After a while, they just floated quietly in the water, listening to the soft lapping and Rin humming, except that it was not awkward at all – Rin seemed so at ease, so much more at ease than his Rin, less inhibited and less closed off. Only, he realised, wonder growing, this Rin was also his Rin, his for real. It was a good future he was in. 

“What am I working as?” The question echoed off the walls, unnaturally loud. 

Rin laughed. “Just like you to only ask that now. You’re working at the aquarium of all places, of course,” Haru could feel the dirty look without even looking, “and all the dolphins love you by the way. Occasionally you’re selling some of your art works, paintings and carvings and such, but it’s all freelance. I’m writing for a sports magazine, for your information, since you so kindly asked.”

Haru felt his stomach drop, and his feet followed. “Sports magazine? What happened to the Olympics? Your dream?”

Rin mirrored his posture, dropping his feet to the pool’s floor. “Three years ago,” he grinned, an all-too familiar cocky expression, “and before that. We did it, Haru!”

There must have been water in his ears. “We?” 

Rin’s smile widened, like he was still laughing in victory. “We. Together.”

There was a sudden pull in his chest, as he stood staring at Rin beaming back at him with fierce pride, and suddenly Haru wished, so hard he almost couldn’t breathe, he could have seen the sight, tasted fame and glory with Rin, stood by Rin’s side and swam in the same waters as they took the prize. 

“Ah, of course, you don’t remember it, do you,” Rin’s face changed, again turning familiar, but Haru didn’t like this familiar. He’d seen that expression too many times and had never liked it, shadowed and hurtful as it was. “Never mind,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”

Rin’s cover was slipping, and Haru caught the way he almost stepped into his shower after Haru. Suddenly everything that was supposed to be familiar – the gnawing uncertainty, the hidden unease he’d come to associate with his Rin – was no longer welcome. This Rin wasn’t supposed to be like that. He didn't want Rin to be like that, ever, regardless of time and place.

They walked out of the showers in silence, and several times Haru saw Rin open his mouth to say something, but look away instead. The corridors of this swim club were starting to look like the old Iwatobi’s, and Haru remembered why he hated the winter. Dread trickled through him, dark and cold. 

They had dinner at home – his home with Rin, Haru mused on that for a while, and was surprised by how little he was opposed to it – and all the comfort and familiarity they had woken up in had evaporated. 

“You’re taking this really easily,” Rin said, and he was trying so hard to act as if he was okay, but it was clear he was on edge. 

“No, I’m not. It’s all wrong. It feels wrong,” Rin’s face changed so suddenly, shock and hurt and then feigned nonchalance, and he looked so young all of a sudden that Haru added quickly, “I feel out of place. It still doesn’t feel real. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for forgetting. I’m sorry. But,” he added softly, hesitatingly, “it’s not a bad kind of wrong. I like it.”

“Oh.” Haru watched as Rin scrutinised his dinner – meat, while Haru had his mackerel, some things really never changed. Rin clenched and unclenched his jaw, still anxious and afraid, but then he said, “I forgot how shit at talking you were. And now we’ll have to work on that all over again.”

“You’re not really one to talk yourself.”

Rin stuck his tongue out, an action so juvenile Haru almost choked on his mackerel. “You don’t know me!”

“I’m sorry,” Haru said again later as he dried the plates. 

“Sorry for what?” Rin turned the tap off and looked at him. 

“I’m sorry I forgot everything. Even the Olympics.” 

“I- It’s okay. We’ll deal, right?” Rin said. 

“But I forgot the Olympics!” 

“Yeah, that,” Rin ran a hand through his hair and down his face. “I – I’m not okay with – we’ve lost ten years, damn it, and so much has changed since then, so much happened,” he looked at Haru imploringly, desperately, as if he could bring back ten years of memories just like that, “and I don’t even know but –“ and then he took a deep breath, and he was calm, steady, like the Rin Haru knew never was, and said, “But we’ll work it out. It’s okay. We’ll explain the situation to the people at the aquarium but keep it quiet for now, the dolphins love you so you shouldn’t have much trouble, just don’t jump in with them, thank heavens you kicked that habit, Nagisa and Rei can probably find a way to help you get those memories back and –“

“Okay, okay, calm down, Rin,” Haru said, a little amused, and also relieved. “What were you planning to do for the rest of tonight?”

There was that smirk again, and Haru felt apprehension and anticipation light anew. “Oh man, I was planning to bring you somewhere. Memories schmemories it’s still great, come on.”

It was cold outside, snow falling lightly on the ground. It dusted the bridge, which was apparently the somewhere Rin had been planning to take him. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Haru really wasn’t sure what else he’d been expecting. It was such a Rin place to go, ten years, hell fourteen years hadn’t changed him that much. A simple metal bridge curved gracefully over the ice, lights strung across its delicate beams and lighting it up. It was also quiet, with hardly anyone on the banks, only the wind and the snow. 

“Romantic,” Haru corrected with a small smile, and he thought Rin might have blushed. 

“Geez, that was years ago. Come on.” He grabbed Haru’s hand, and stepped onto the bridge. “Don’t try to jump into the water, you’ll break the ice and freeze to death.”

It felt like a cheesy scene from a romantic movie, just the two of them walking alone on a deserted bridge in the snow, hand in hand, Haru looking down at the frozen water and Rin at the moon, and Haru almost felt embarrassed. Then he decided he liked it, which made him actually embarrassed. 

“Are you blushing?” Rin laughed. “And you make fun of me!” 

“Maybe you should get Rei to help you get some glasses,” Haru shot back, to which Rin only laughed louder. 

“You are blushing!”

Haru scowled, and then Rin kissed him, right in the middle of the bridge. When he pulled away, Haru wasn’t the only one blushing any longer. 

“Listen, don’t worry about this whole thing okay,” Rin said. “It’s a real shitty Christmas present but we’ll work it through. Time hasn’t ever mattered to us anyway, we lost four years once but we made up for that didn’t we, and we’ll, we’ll do it again,” he promised forcefully, wrapping his scarf around Haru’s cold fingers. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Haru told him. “But for some inane reason, I seem to like ridiculous.”

*

Haru awoke alone in his bed the next morning, no sun on his face, and no breath tickling his shoulder. He was back in his house, and it was Christmas Day all over again, but the right Christmas and not ten years forward. He was still seventeen, Makoto was still living next door and hadn’t changed, nor had the others when they met up again later that day at his house. 

“Hey, shove aside,” Rin said without bite, squeezing himself between Haru and Rei. “I’m playing too!”

“I’ll help Rin-chan!”

“Nagisa-kun, every time you two team up you win!” 

“Good luck, Rei-chan!”

“Start over Haru, I’m going to kick your ass this round!”

“As if!” 

A small part of Haru was regretful, but for the most part he was relieved. Losing time once was more than enough, and now he knew what he really wanted. He'd spent four years wanting it, and now he thought he'd like to want it for - for the rest of his life. Over dinner with the Tachibanas’ he watched that smile across the table, and imagined seeing it, exhilarated and victorious and beautiful at the Olympics and directed at him, for him alone; imagined starting a whole new life with him and re-enacting cheesy romance scenes with him. He wanted that future, that future with the convoluted, confusing person opposite him, and sure he was a little annoyed right now by the way Rin was lording his and Nagisa’s victory over the dinner table, but he’d willingly take that for the rest of his life too, for reasons he wasn’t really thinking about too much yet. 

At about 4am, by which point the slumber party was petering off, Haru finally found the right opportunity, as Nagisa dragged Rei down for an early morning snack and Makoto finally conked out. 

“Let’s date,” he said, and watched with satisfaction as Rin turned as red as his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> The request was for time travel, with suggestions of Olympics, middle-agedness, chatting with future selves and that helping either to make decisions in the present, and I, uh, kind of tried to find some middle ground between all of those. This isn't a cohesive piece, and I'm sorry for that, I haven't really had the time to do some editing and I think you can sort of see the parts where I basically died. I hope it's um, at least satisfactory though? I'm sorry :3 gosh this is embarrassing. This is the first piece of creative writing I've done in over a year, and my writing is obviously rusty, so a thousand thousand apologies for that. 
> 
> Anyway uh, Merry Christmas! 
> 
> …and now I'm going to bed. 
> 
> (Also the title is really shitty but that's what happens when the piece isn't cohesive I'M SORRY)
> 
> (I could come back to it and edit it after my internship leaves me more time :3)


End file.
